With harvest reports still trickling in from all over the state, wildlife biologists from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency won't know exactly how many deer were killed during the state's 2012-13 hunting season for at least another couple of weeks.

But even with incomplete information, they know enough to say it was one of the best deer seasons Tennessee has had during the past decade.

As of 1 p.m. Friday, Tennessee hunters had checked 174,631 deer. That's nearly 6,000 more than last season's total and the highest overall number since the final harvests were recorded for the 2006-07 campaign.

"We're definitely looking at the best harvest we've had since the EHD outbreak of 2007," said Chuck Yoest, big-game coordinator for TWRA. "It happened for all of the usual reasons: We had good weather for hunting season and lots of folks out hunting, and it was just a good year for seeing lots of deer."

Tennessee had a fantastic total deer harvest of 180,344 during the 2006-07 hunting season. But the state suffered a massive outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease during the summer of 2007, and the overall herd took a step backward.

EHD causes whitetail deer to develop a high fever, drink water incessantly and bleed gruesomely from their mouths, noses and anuses. Thousands of deer died from the disease, and the harvest numbers reflected that for the next several seasons.

In 2007-08 — the season immediately after the EHD outbreak — hunters killed 161,841 deer for a drop-off of nearly 19,000 from the previous season. The numbers remained in that same neighborhood for the next three seasons with hunters taking 161,929 deer for 2008-09, 159,837 deer for 2009-10 and 160,642 deer for 2010-11.

Gradual recovery

As frightening as the EHD outbreak was, wildlife biologists never saw it as the end of the world for the state's deer herd.

EHD is actually a naturally occurring ailment that infects a certain number of deer every year — and though the 2007 outbreak was one of the worst ever, there was never any danger of whitetail deer disappearing completely. In fact, the massive outbreak had a positive effect on a couple of fronts.

For one thing, it helped Mother Nature exercise natural population control on a species that had been steadily multiplying toward out-of-control status. Deer-car collisions and deer-related property damage were both at all-time highs before the outbreak, and even the slightest relief was welcomed by many people, including insurance agents.

"We had a lot of areas where deer were overpopulated around the state, and the disease knocked a lot of that back," said Daryl Ratajczak, the current chief of TWRA's Wildlife and Forestry Division and who was serving as big-game coordinator during the 2007 outbreak. "People who hunt in those areas have noticed a much healthier deer herd since then because there's simply more food to go around for the remaining deer."

In addition, the deer that contracted and survived EHD developed a natural immunity to the disease, and that was passed automatically to their young. That strengthened the Tennessee deer herd, reducing the chances of a 2007-style outbreak anytime in the near future.

The deer harvest numbers have reflected that strength the past two seasons.

On the way up

During the 2011-12 hunting season, Tennessee hunters killed a respectable total of 167,813 deer. That bested the previous season's total by more than 7,000.

Now with the 2012-13 number possibly headed for 175,000 or more, the comeback from the 2007 EHD outbreak is all but complete.

"It wouldn't have taken a harvest of 175,000 deer to make us feel good about this season," Yoest said. "All we want is to see numbers that are consistent with the long-term trend. As long we're killing in the 165,000 to 170,000 range, we're gonna feel pretty good about it."

The counties where the highest deer harvest occurred for 2012-13 won't be determined until all harvest reports are in. But Yoest said he doesn't expect any surprises there either.

"I'm in constant contact with biologists from all four regions of the state," Yoest said. "If something wasn't right in one of those regions, I would have known about it before now. By all accounts, we had very solid deer hunting all over the state this year."